A Time to Talk, released on October 28

"The intention of the regime is controlling power through communes"

CARLOS BLANCO| EL UNIVERSAL

Saturday November 03, 2012 12:00 AM

Another trick!

For several years, Chávez has been nurturing his purpose to build a Communal Republic, which would emerge from several sources, but essentially from his entrails. Mr. President has decided to trepan Venezuelans' skulls to let demons of Capitalism go out so that black and yellow bile no longer torments them. In the hole in the skull, the set of ideas of President Chávez' peculiar Marxism, which he has acquired by means of transubstantiation, will be deposited, because Marx can only be read through the translations into the revolutionary dialect made by comrade Giordani. You have also to count on Fidel's help who now communicates by means of signs, especially with Elías Jaua, who is very proficient in that language.

The Communal Power would be the instrument used to return power back to those levels that are closest to citizens; it is presented as a mechanism to replace the old institutional system; the intention would be to circumvent the existing system by appealing to the people in their purest state; the grassroots, ours. Then, the people would speak and with their tough voice they would establish the word and the law; like the king.

That pursue of the pristine source of the people's power is the driving force that moves reds in these times of victory. "All power to the Soviets!" would be equivalent to this 21st century catarrh: "All power to the Communes!" or better put: "All power belongs to the communes." That is, it is mine.

WHAT IS THE USE OF THE COMMUNAL POWER? In fact, the intention of the regime is controlling power, absolutely everything, through communes. Chávez already has the government, the national State, a large part of the sub-national state (on 12/16, he wants to wolf down the rest), and he still has to complete domain over the civil society through the communal power. He has moved forward in this terrain with a widespread offensive against education, communication media, public and private cultural apparatus, the Church, and has set out to go to the place where the common citizens develop their everyday lives: their homes and their works.

This communal purpose emerged for two reasons. One has to do with the substance and the other with current circumstances. The first one is that the communal power would be born within the framework of the Bolivarian process, without the blemish of the old regime, as happens to inherited institutions; the second reason is that the existing control instruments, mainly the government party (PSUV) and the Armed Force (essentially the militia) have proven not to be effective for that total, totalizing, totalitarian control. The PSUV party does not work because it only counts on the State's resources, without which it would become lifeless; the Armed Forces and the militia do not work for the same reasons, not to mention the institutional source of resistance.
Given this situation, the communal power would emerge under the direct control of Chávez, without having to undergo the metamorphosis experienced by institutions that have not completely left behind the characteristics of the spectral 4th Republic. That power would emerge under the domain and the unequivocal financing of the government.

The Communal, Workers', Students' and Peasants' Councils are destined to the "socialist solidarity;" by themselves, they would not only represent "the people", but they would be "the people" in their original state of existence, and as such, repository of sovereignty exercised through the People's Power.

WHY THE COMMUNAL POWER? Article 136 of the draft constitutional reform that Chávez submitted and lost in 2007 provided for as follows, among other things: "The people is the repository of sovereignty and exercise it directly through the People's Power, which does not emerge from votes or any election, but from the condition of organized human groups as the basis of the population. The People's Power is expressed by creating communities, communes and self-governments of cities through communal, workers', students', peasants', artisans', fishing people's, sports', youngsters', adults' and elderly, women's, and disabled people's councils, as well as other entities established by law." Ugh! Whew!

Let us try it together: "The people are the repository of the sovereignty and directly exercise it through the People's Power;" that is, not through the State, but through the "People's Power" and what does People's Power mean? It is not the one that "emerges from votes or any election, but from the condition of organized human groups as the basis of the population." Let us read it again: the one that emerges "from the condition of organized human groups as the basis of the population." Let us try to understand this pastiche; that would be like saying: be organized; do not worry; it does not matter if you are many or a few: just exercise power.

So it happens. Scarlet bands are created because their desire to exercise power comes from their entrails: motorbike drivers, paramilitary units, gangs to invade properties, PSUV cells, and, certainly, genuine people groups assume control just because they are "organized human groups" from which the "people's power" emerges.

HOW COULD THE COMMUNAL POWER ACT? This freak is not autonomous altogether, but the most complete and complex operation to promote social control upwards and inwards the citizens. However, it goes far beyond: it is the tool to destroy regional, municipal and local authority levels, which decentralization created and sheltered. Communes could assume the leadership of organizations at the states and municipal levels, to promote the Communal State. On its part, the People's Power Ministry for Communes and Social Protection is the counterpart over the communes that are at the bottom, and its goals include creating "communal networks through community involvement at the national level."

Article 103 of the Constitution provides for as follows: "The Assemblies of the People's Power, established in the demarcated political-administrative areas into which the national territory is divided, are the local higher organs of the State's power, and, consequently, they are endowed with the highest authority to discharge the State functions within their respective demarcated areas; and, to this end, they exercise the government within the bounds of their authority and conforming to the law."

Sorry, I forgot to tell that the aforementioned article belongs to the Constitution of Cuba.

Chávez is set out to broaden and spreading his intervention at the most elemental level of the citizen lives: it is the iron circle that excludes institutions of the old regime (and the new too) to establish total control. To this end, they have to seize governor's offices and from inside them, dissolve them. Other reasons aside, voting on December 16 could contribute to stop this aberration.

Dossier

As Venezuelan deposits of public funds in Swiss bank accounts have been revealed, opposition Deputy Andrés Velásquez wonders whatever happened to the USD 500 million worth of CVG funds that turned up in coded bank accounts in Lebanon five years ago.